Standards Earn Titles, Not Trust
You got to where you are today as a Leader because of your standards…… but these standards do not serve you well when you are in a position of leadership.
When we are learning personal effectiveness it is essential that we learn how to manage our lives and lead ourselves. This is the journey that all of us are on. For example when you became a business owner you went the extra mile to serve your customers. You were the reason that they came back time and time again. These standards for yourself is how you started to grow your business. Now that you have a team onboard however, these standards can come off as micromanaging and limiting the trust that you have in your team.
You see there are different stages of our development as humans. This is framework is called the 4 R’s and comes from a body of work by Sharon Pearson.
The 4 R’s
1) Reliance: When others create our standards (being a child),
2) Rebellion: When we break away from the thinking of others(Being a teenager)
3) Results: When we can create what we set our mind to (functional Adulthood)
4) Realisation: When we want to give back and help others evolve (Leadership)
We naturally grow through these stages as life goes on, but not everyone goes through them. We all know adults still struggle to make things happen and are stuck in the rebel stage…..
As a business owner, we already have the results we want to create in our lives.
We have systems in place to make money and a plan by which we live by.
The next stage is to move to Realisation, where we need to have high standards for ourselves and lower our standards for those around us. This is the stage of meaning where we can recognise where others are in their journey and not need them to be further along than they are.
Humans are humans, and we are fundamentally flawed. We self-sabotage, get lazy, we get overwhelmed, we fuck up, we shut down, and we lack focus. These are things that all of your team members will be battling with…….until they have a leader who can see their imperfections AND have enough grace to coach them through it.
I often coach business owners who are so frustrated at the standards of the people on their teams. The team member says they understand the task at hand, but yet they don’t follow through….. And that is why we need to remember that we have been on the journey and we have overcome those development stages and that our team members need coaching to get there.
I have a fantastic model that I teach my clients called Pace, pace, lead. This model helps you have different conversations with your team members depending on where they are at in their development. (Reach out if you want to know more)
So, Next time someone ‘lets you down’ in your team. Think to yourself, :
“What is fair of me to expect they knew how to do the task?”
“Where did they set up the training, system or guidelines to achieve it?”
“Are my standards too high for that person?”
These introspective questions can help you become more relatable as a leader and create more trust in your team as you build your awareness around them.
The standards you have had until now have served you. They created you. Now it’s your journey to learn how to let go of the need for them to be met and allow others to grow as well :)
You can watch a video here on the 4 R’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9VO1ZmOYsU
